Adélie Penguins - Pygoscelis adeliae

The most southerly of Antarctic breeding penguins along
with the Emperor, found on the Antarctic continent and sub-Antarctic
islands.

Adélie Penguin facts - Basics

Average Weight: 5kg - 11lb - feels
more than this though when you've upset one and it's
ran up and attacked you by hanging off your thigh with its
beak, the penguin version of a pair of pliers attached to
your leg.

Average Height: 70cm -
27.5inchesBreeding Season: November - February
- Adélie penguin colonies are very loud, raucous,
busy and smelly affairs. The call of an Adélie is as
musical and gentle as a braying jackass and the whole colony
is awash with guano (posh word for bird poop). When I was
in Antarctica one thing I did was help with long-term surveys
which entailed walking through the colony (terribly frowned
upon these days). Each nest is just over two pecking distances
apart so the penguins can't reach each other. Of course
walking through the middle meant that you were in range
of everyone. I used to worry a lot about falling over in
a penguin colony, covered from head to toe in guano and
pecked mercilessly.

Reproduction: Large colonies
of up to half a million birds. Nests are lined with pebbles,
and slightly higher than the surrounding land so that if
the temperature rises and the snow melts, the nest is not
flooded. The males arrive first on the nesting site at the
beginning of the season and start the nest, then both partners
work on the nest. Usually two eggs are laid, rarely three.
Incubation of the first egg is 35 - 37 days, and the second
chick is a few days behind the first. Male and female parent
share egg and chick duty. Chicks are fed regurgitated krill
(yum!) The chicks become independent at about two months
old.

Predators: Leopard seals - main predators
of adult birds, and Skuas - prey on eggs and chicks on land.Conservation
status: Near threatened.

Distribution:
Circumpolar, tend to be found within the pack ice.

Oldest Rookery - At least 6,335 years old. The places
where penguins nest together are called rookeries. These
are started and later abandoned for reasons that are not
entirely clear. Archaeological type studies have found that
these rookeries are often continually used for many hundreds
of years, even thousands. The oldest so far found has been
used every year since well before 4 000 BC.

Myth: Penguins don't fall over
backwards when watching helicopters and airplanes flying
overhead requiring squads of people to go round and pick
them up again, an Antarctic "urban myth".

Adélie penguins live further south
than any other type. Why is this one on the ice?

There are more Adélie penguins than any other
penguin species. They live in the deep south and so frequently
have to cross many kilometres of winter sea-ice still bound
to the continent or islands to reach land in the spring where
they can build their nests.

Sometimes they have to travel as much as 100 kilometres (60
miles), though usually 20-40 is more usual. A long walk nevertheless.

This guy here was an early arrival in spring at an Antarctic
Island near the northern edge of the breeding range and only
had about half a kilometer left to waddle and "toboggan".

Tobogganing is a way of getting around where there is smooth
snow or ice. The penguin lies on its stomach and propels itself
along using its feet, an efficient use of energy and one where
the penguin can easily keep up with a running person.

When do Adélie penguins start
to nest?

Adélies winter on the pack ice where the air
temperature is higher than on land and where they can find
cracks in the ice to fish through.

In October, they begin
to move south to their breeding grounds, the males arriving
first to establish territories and nest spaces with the females
arriving shortly afterwards.

These are some of the first males arriving back in the spring
before the remainder of the sea-ice has broken away, taking
a rest here before continuing on their journey.

Why are these penguins hopping about
on the ice?

These Adélies have a problem, they went out
fishing at high tide and now. some hours later have returned.
In the meantime the tide has gone out.

Still attached to the land is the "ice-foot" an
ice step left behind as the tide rises and falls in the winter
months to which the floating sea ice is loosely attached. When
the sea ice breaks out, the ice-foot is left behind for a period
of days to weeks before rising temperatures and the waves cause
this to break off too.

What was a short hop down for the penguins is now a step
too high for them. I spent a couple of hours one afternoon watching
and following an ever increasing number of penguins as they
came back from their fishing trip. They wandered up and down
the shore-line trying to find somewhere to get up, but to no
avail. Eventually, the tide came back in and so they floated
back up to the right level and were able to get back to their
nests. The ice-foot broke off completely a few days later in
a mild storm.

How long were they stuck?

More of the Adélies stuck at low tide.

The ice-foot is more evident in this picture and the number
of penguins is building up, by the time the tide was rising
enough to float the grounded "bergy bits" that the
birds are standing on, there were about 50 or so penguins standing
around before they could get back up.

Why is this penguin showing off?

What a handsome fellow! This male
Adélie is a bit late compared to the others around him
who have in the main already paired and nested.

The males arrive at the breeding grounds first, find a good
spot and then go through this display with much raucous calling
and flipper waving to attract a suitably impressed female. (A
similar ritual is re-enacted on Friday and Saturday evenings
at bars and clubs the world over).

You can also see the half-feathered beak characteristic
of Adélie penguins and how stocky and powerful they are despite
their diminutive stature.

Like many penguin species, the male and females are
physically almost completely identical and it is almost
impossible to tell them apart by their appearnce, the
behaviour at mating time however gives things away much more
clearly.

Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae)
tobogganing

Tobogganing Adelie penguins (and a lone chinstrap
in the fore-ground). All types of penguin that come across snow
and ice can and will toboggan in this manner. It is a very efficient
and rapid way of moving when the conditions are right - soft
snow, but where the penguin only sinks a little way into it,
needing less energy than walking the same distance.

The
penguin lays on it's front and pushes its way forwards using
its feet, the flippers are used for balance or sometimes as
oars to help forwards movement. It can be a fast sprint to get
away quickly or a more leisurely equivalent of a slow-jog over
a long time period.

A considerable speed can be reached
for short distances in this way, enough to out pace a running
man.

Penguin dive

Antarctic penguins run a constant risk when entering or
leaving the water from the almost ever-present danger of their
main predator, the leopard seal. Leopard seals tend not
to chase penguins around in the open sea, but hang around the
places where they jump into the sea from their nesting areas,
or where they leave the sea again as this is gives much more
productive hunting.

This gives the penguins a problem when going into the sea,
they have to enter it to go fishing and to get places, but being
the first one in means that they're first in line for a potential
leopard seal attack. Hanging back isn't any better though as
they may get left behind and end up jumping in on their own.
What happens therefore is that they gather at the edge of the
water becoming quite animated and jostling for position until
one near to the edge gets pushed or jumps in - that's the signal
for the rest, as the odds of survival are far greater when you're
part of a large group which can confuse the leopard seal, they
then all dive in in rapid succession.

Parent penguin and chicks

Like many penguins, Adélies lay
two eggs of which usually only one survives to fledge.

The parents take it in turns to incubate the eggs or go
out to sea fishing and then later on when the eggs have hatched,
they take it in turns to catch food for and feed the chicks
or sit with the chicks on the nest. When the chicks are older
and able to walk around and leave the nest, the parents will
both go fishing together to supply the growing demand for
food from the
growing youngster/s.

The chicks left behind form loose
collections of birds that stay close together in a crèche where
they help offer some defence to each other from marauding skuas
and also the weather when the wind blows and temperature drops, huddling
together helps give them extra warmth and protection.

Is this a penguin?

Wait until his father gets home!

When the parents go off to sea to catch fish for the chicks,
the chicks have little to do other than stand around and try
not to get into trouble.

This doesn't always work in the way that it is supposed
to, rather like human children, penguin chicks fall over sometimes
and get a bit dirty!